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Week 7 · Module overview

Week 7 — Memory

Introduction to Psychology Free sample edition

Welcome to your Week 7 Start Here page.

Why this matters

A nursing student learning drug names and a juror weighing a confident eyewitness both depend on how memory works, and on when it fails.

In plain language

Memory is how yesterday stays with you: a friend's face, the way to ride a bike, the answer you studied last night. Psychologists break it into three jobs. Encoding is getting information in, storage is keeping it, and retrieval is getting it back out when you need it. This week you will see why a phone number slips away in half a minute, why three short study sessions beat one long one, and why forgetting is steepest in the first hour. You will also learn why a memory you feel sure about can still be wrong, and which parts of the brain each kind of memory leans on.

  • Already covered: Week 2 met Ebbinghaus and Loftus & Palmer as methods; Week 3 met the hippocampus; Week 6 covered learning.
  • This week: how memories are made, kept, lost, and rebuilt.
  • How they connect: learning is the change; memory is how it is kept.
  • Where we're going next: Week 8, the midterm review.

Focus

How do we keep our experiences, why do they fade, and can a sure memory be wrong?

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

  • [ ] name encoding, storage, and retrieval, and say which one failed
  • [ ] use chunking and spacing to remember more
  • [ ] read the forgetting curve and tell proactive from retroactive interference
  • [ ] explain the misinformation effect and why confidence is not accuracy

To-do

Plan your week

  1. Read Chapter 7 (about 45 minutes), then the lecture and the slides.
  2. Work the lecture tutorial (60–90 minutes) and the practice set (about 20 minutes).
  3. Do the Analysis Workshop (about 90 minutes), the discussion, and the assignment.
  4. Take the quiz.

This week's checkpoint: say whether an old password blocking a new one is proactive or retroactive interference, and why.

You've got this

Take it in order, and ask your instructor early if a step snags.

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